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TNA: Angle and Magnus in Last Man Standing main event!

Tonight’s recap video is very strange, showing us animated clones watching last weeks action on an old fashioned/post apocalyptic cinema screen. TNA don’t tend to do stuff like this, caught me by surprise.

Kurt Angle heads to the ring, and talks about his World Title Tournament match. Magnus, his opponent for said match, interrupts him and basically plays the heel for tonight. They talk about how they’ve been friends for a while, but won’t hold back blah blah. Bobby Roode then heads out and says it’s all futile because he’s going to the final either way. Jeff Hardy then heads out dragging a table, and says some stuff about creatures, then starts a ‘Hardy’ chant, I hate that.

TABLES MATCH – BOBBY ROODE VS JEFF HARDY

I always think Tables matches are interesting, just because the competitors have to think about what they’re doing, you’re basically taking away the standard idea of pin/submission. At approximately the 5 minute mark, both men fall from the apron through a table. Brian Hebner doesn’t know who went through first (even on the replay I couldn’t even tell, good job lads). After discussing it with his fellow referees, he restarted the match. Interesting spot with Roode rolling off a table onto the mat, but Hardy continuing his plan by doing a Swanton Bomb OVER the table and connecting, looked great. The ending came when Hardy connected with that upside down spinning Enziguri thing onto Roode, who fell from the apron through a table. Decent match, I’d rather have Roode go over though.

Backstage – Dixie Carter tells us that AJ Styles agent has sent her a document saying AJ Styles is sending her something, hopefully the World Title belt.

ETHAN CARTER III VS EARL HEBNER

Yes…really. Earl refuses, but EC3 retorts that he works for the Carter family, so he will do as he’s told. New Chief of Staff Rockstar Spud sends out Brian Hebner to ref the match, as Ethan tells Earl to lay down. Earl hesitates for a second, and EC3 screams threats at him until he complies. Brian counts the pin slowly and then is ordered to roll his own father out of the ring. Earl falls out of the ring like he’s actually had a match…idiot. Spud and Ethan celebrate as the crowd boo loudly. I actually liked this, it felt really awkward and EC3 came across completely petty and spoilt.

Backstage – Dixie is talking to the roster, she’s bringing back ‘Feast or Fired’ next week (4 briefcases, 3 title shots, one pink slip).

Bad Influence come to the ring, to reveal the truth about Joseph Park. He follows them out probably 20 seconds later, says he doesn’t care what they have to say, and rips up the envelope they brought with them. Kaz says ‘well done fat man, you can tear up an envelope’, and they tell the backstage people to air their discovery on the big screen instead. It shows us Kaz and Daniels at the address on Joseph Parks business card, an office complex in Chicago. They head to the suite itself, and find an empty office. They ask the buildings secretary what happened to the Park lawfirm, and she says it closed down 13 years ago. In the ring, Park asks BI to leave him alone, until Kaz spits in his face, screams ‘LIAR’ and they jump him. Eric Young runs out to make the save, and challenges the two of them to a tag match next week. This felt really dark, not heel-funny at all, I genuinely felt relieved when EY ran out, Taz broke character to say it had gone too far.

THE BRO-MANS VS JAMES STORM & GUNNER

Best thing about this match was resident DJ Zema Ion hitting the air-horn button about 50 times, throughout the entire match, no matter who was in control at the time. The faces pretty much dominated the whole thing, which I didn’t like. Storm connected with a Superkick on Jesse, and went for the pin. As this was happening, Robbie E spat beer into Gunners face. Gunner then attacked him, and subsequently shoved the referee as he tried to split it up. DQ win for the Bro-Mans.

GAIL KIM W/ LEI’D TAPA VS LAURA DENNIS

Squashtastic, nobody cared. At least Tapa actually tried to get involved this week, until ODB made the save. Weirdly I feel that Gail, Knockouts Champion, is actually a side note for her bodyguards rivalry.

LAST MAN STANDING – KURT ANGLE VS MAGNUS

Basically Kurt can make anyone look like a million dollars. This felt quite a lot slower than the other matches on the card, a lot more technical than I thought it’d be, especially as a LMS match. Kurt had the match won after an Angle Slam but obviously the ref was down. This gave Roode the chance to run to the ring and take out Kurt with a hard spine-buster. Kurt stayed down for the count, and Magnus progresses to the final. I’ve always thought LMS matches were basically no-DQ, so I don’t know why there had to be a ref bump.

Roode ran back after the bell to attack Angle, only for Jeff Hardy to make the save. He then squared up to Magnus to promote their match next week.

Dixie’s package was actually a kids version of the TV title, sigh.

As always you can contact me with any thoughts, or even if you just want to chat about wrestling at @jrholberry on twitter.